Comparison of Smartphone and Online Computer Survey Administration

Abstract

The dramatic rise of smartphones has profound implications for survey research. Namely, can smartphones become a viable and comparable device for self-administered surveys? The current study is based on approximately 1,500 online U.S. panelists who were smartphone users and who were randomly assigned to the mobile app or online computer mode of a survey. Within the survey, we embedded several experiments that had been previously tested in other modes (mail, PC web, mobile web). First, we test whether responses in the mobile app survey are sensitive to particular experimental manipulations as they are in other modes. Second, we test whether responses collected in the mobile app survey are similar to those collected in the online computer survey. Our mobile survey experiments show that mobile survey responses are sensitive to the presentation of frequency scales and the size of open-ended text boxes, as are responses in other survey modes. Examining responses across modes, we find very limited evidence for mode effects between mobile app and PC web survey administrations. This may open the possibility for multimode (mobile and online computer) surveys, assuming that certain survey design recommendations for mobile surveys are used consistently in both modes.